Updates

Days To Remember On A World Voyage

Welcome to another Blog, this time celebrating our World Voyages on Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria. Thank you all for all your comments and questions as well; it’s great to hear so many of you are following our Queens’ progress around the globe.

There are many events that only take place on longer voyages which makes them very special. One activity that we first tried out on Queen Victoria’s maiden voyage was Float Your Boat. Guests are invited to form teams of would be Mariners, and construct a ship that will carry a cargo from one end of the Pavilion Pool to another. There aren’t many rules apart from the fact the vessel cannot be touched whilst in the water and cannot have any form of motorised propulsion. The rest we leave to our guests’ imagination.

The activity was first staged on the way to New Zealand, but guests asked for another chance to win the accolade, so we announced a Re-Float Your Boat after we left Hong Kong, with the defending champion Ace with its American Team ready to fend off a new set of competitors.

The first job was for the teams to show off their craft, and some even dressed for the occasion like the crew of the SS UKAUSTUS.

The more astute will realise the name is made up of the nationalities of the team members, Dianne Jones from Australia, Jaques Baillargeon from USA and Jack Conn from the UK. Then it was time to see how well the ships would perform in their Sea Trials which took place in the whirlpool!

This was a chance for the owners to try out their handiwork, however it didn’t always go as the teams would have liked, such as this interesting vessel Captained by Henry Strange from Britain.

Then it was time for the actual heats and it was quite a sight to see the various craft in the water especially the French ship under the command of Gilbert Cheve whose ingenious design used rice crackers as floatation devices!

But there do have to be winners, and unfortunately Ace didn’t manage to retain the title. Instead the Ribband was shared by two teams and here they are receiving their awards from Nico Lansdell of the Entertainment Staff, who did a great job in organising yet another very successful World Voyage event.

Easter is always a big occasion on board Cunard ships, starting with Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday. It’s a great opportunity for our Pastry Chefs to show off their amazing talents with Chocolate displays around the ship. Queen Mary 2 had quite a few different displays on the Purser’s desk and in the various restaurants.

Meanwhile here on Queen Victoria guests woke up on Easter Sunday to a magnificent festive display in the Grand Lobby.

And finally…………..

You may have been as surprised as many of our guests were on Queen Victoria recently, when they saw an article in the ship’s Daily Programme suggesting that Cunard was about to change the colours of the ships’ funnels. Well see for yourself:

You may be interested to know that the date on the front cover of the Daily Programme was April 1st!!

Oh yes we had some fun with that, watching numerous guests getting their cameras out and taking their final pictures of the old colour as they disembarked on their tours that morning. In fact we even received a complaint at the Purser’s Desk later that day, saying they didn’t like the new colour!

We would also like to thank the three guests (who will remain anonymous) who came along to our advertised activity at 11.00am………

The time was duly observed with the three rather confused guests, who when the realised the date, pleaded with us not to say who they were!

That’s it for today, but I’ll be back on Wednesday with a feature about our recent overnight stay in Dubai which includes some spectacular pictures taken from the top of the World’s tallest building. Then on Thursday we’ll have a special story from Queen Mary 2 and a recent Culinary Event held on their 2010 World Voyage. Cheers for now Alastair.